Thurnscoe & Goldthorpe

The Carboniferous and Permian geology around Thurnscoe & Goldthorpe

Following my trip to Chesterfield to see the church of St. Mary and All Saints, in the first week of June, I hadn't made the most of a period of warm and sunny weather and I therefore decided to look into the possibility of visiting some more churches of Anglo-Saxon origin in South Yorkshire.

A map showing the distribution of Anglo-Saxon churches in South Yorkshire

To date, travelling entirely by public transport, although I had so far managed to get to remote villages like Thorne and Laughton-en-le-Morthen – the latter requiring six separate bus journeys in total – the waiting times between the bus/train connections had enabled me to get to my destination in less than an hour and a half; however, to get to either Hooton Pagnell, Bughwallis or Brodsworth, this would take me more than 2 hours, provided that the rural buses that serve these remote places turn up on time.

A general view of Goldthorpe railway station

Knowing that gaining access to the interior of some churches was not always easy, as I discovered on the day that I visited Worksop, when carrying a full set of photographic equipment, and that I would have to do some careful planning, I decided to undertake a preliminary investigation of the area around Goldthorpe, from which the bus to Hooton Pagnell leaves.

An exposure of Carboniferous sandstone at Goldthorpe railway station

Goldthorpe, like its neighbour Thurnscoe, was mentioned in Domesday Book as a small agricultural village but it was engulfed by the extensive coal mining industry and associated housing – as also seen at Bolton upon Dearne – but since the closure of the mines in the 1980's it has become an economic black spot, relying heavily on the new station that was subsequently built on the Sheffield to Leeds railway line.

A general view of St. Helen's church in Thurnscoe

 

Making the most of a sunny afternoon, I firstly decided to visit St. Helen's church in Thurnscoe, where Anglo-Saxon burials have been found and a Norman church of 1087 was recorded but there is nothing left remaining of the mediaeval church. Staying for only 20 minutes here, I just made a few quick observations of the Carboniferous sandstone, which the architect used in the rebuilding of the church in 1888, and the earlier dolomitic limestone tower dated to 1729.

A general view of the tower of St. Helen's church

Although from an architectural point of view, there was very little to catch my eye, when undertaking research prior to my visit, I discovered that at the time of the building of the Norman church, the Lord of the Manor was Roger de Busli – whose land also included Laughton-en-le-Morthen - and that a part of Thurnscoe, owned by Roche Abbey, included limestone quarries that exported significant amounts of stone during the mediaeval period, providing further evidence of the extent of the supply network that existed at this time.

A detail of the tower at St. Helen's church

Noting only a few examples of the sandstone used in Victorian terraced houses, I then caught a bus to Goldthorpe where I was surprised to find that sandstone is also not widely used as a building material here and that its only listed building is the church of St. John and St. Mary Magdalene – an early example of a church built entirely in ferroconcrete.

The old cinema in Goldthorpe